How to Find Users with Free Subscriptions in Microsoft 365

In Microsoft 365, some services, such as Power BI (Free), Power Automate Free (Flow free), etc., are available as free subscriptions. These licenses do not consume paid license quotas and allow users to access essential services at no additional cost. Admins can assign these free subscriptions to users through the Microsoft 365 admin center or by using PowerShell to manage license usage and cost more efficiently.

Assign free licenses to users using the Microsoft 365 admin center

• Open the Licenses page in the Microsoft 365 admin center and locate the Subscriptions tab.
• Among the free licenses available in your tenant, select a suitable license and click + Assign licenses to assign it to specific users.
• In the Assign licenses to users pane, search and select users.
• Use the “Turn apps and services on or off” dropdown to assign or remove access to specific apps and services. Then, click Assign to apply the license to the selected users.

Note: You can assign licenses to a maximum of 20 users at a time. Alternatively, free licenses can also be assigned from the Active users page, but you can only select one user and assign a license under the Licenses and Apps tab.

Assign free licenses to users in Microsoft 365 using PowerShell

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes “User.ReadWrite.All”, “Organization.Read.All”
Set-MgUserLicense -UserId $userUPN -AddLicenses @{SkuId = "<SkuId>"} -RemoveLicenses @()

You can retrieve the Sku Ids of the free licenses available in your tenant using the cmdlet below.

Get-MgSubscribedSku | Select SkuPartNumber, SkuId

Note: For bulk license assignments, use group based licensing to automatically assign licenses to all members of the group.

Free subscriptions allow users to access Microsoft 365 services without consuming a paid license. While this can be useful, it also introduces potential risks when left unmanaged. Users with free subscriptions often operate outside centralized IT oversight, which can lead to security gaps and compliance concerns.

Key Risks of Unmanaged Free Subscription Users

For these reasons, it's essential to regularly identify, review, and manage users with free subscriptions to maintain a secure and cost-effective Microsoft 365 environment.

Monitoring which free licenses are assigned to a specific user in Microsoft 365 is essential for effective license management, auditing, and compliance. This is particularly important when you need to verify a user’s access to services or reclaim unused licenses. By accurately identifying the licenses assigned to a user, admins can ensure proper resource allocation.

Find all free licenses assigned to a specific user using the Microsoft Entra admin center

• Sign-in to the Microsoft Entra admin center and go to Entra ID»Users»All users.
• Select the specific user you want to review and click on Licenses in the left pane.
• You’ll now see a list of all the subscriptions assigned to that specified user, including the free subscriptions.

Since the Microsoft 365 admin center lists all assigned subscriptions without a way to filter out free licenses, PowerShell can be used to retrieve only the free ones.

Get all free licenses assigned to a specific user using PowerShell

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.Read.All", "Directory.Read.All"
$freeUsers = Get-MgUser -UserId “<user@domain.com>” | ForEach-Object {
    $licenses = Get-MgUserLicenseDetail -UserId $_.Id
    $matchedSkus = $licenses | Where-Object { $_.SkuPartNumber -match $freeSkuPatterns }

    if ($matchedSkus) {
        [PSCustomObject]@{
            DisplayName       = $_.DisplayName
            UserPrincipalName = $_.UserPrincipalName
            FreeLicenses      = ($matchedSkus.SkuPartNumber -join ", ")
        }
    }
}
$freeUsers | Format-Table

Handling free licenses for all users in Microsoft 365 is essential for maintaining a secure and cost-efficient external collaboration. Without proper oversight, these licenses may lead to unnecessary access or potential compliance risks. Therefore, admins can efficiently manage free licenses for multiple users at once with the following options to ensure proper access control and align with organizational policies.

Manage free licenses for active users in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Self-service sign-up subscriptions let users in your organization access Microsoft 365 services for free by registering themselves. While helpful in some scenarios, these subscriptions are limited and intended for individual use, which may lead to unmanaged service access. To maintain control, admins can either delete existing self-service subscriptions or block new self-service sign-ups entirely to prevent future access.

Delete a self-service sign-up subscription in Microsoft Entra admin center

You can delete a self-service sign-up subscription to prevent unmanaged access to Microsoft 365 services. This helps you maintain control over licensing and ensures compliance with organizational policies.

• In the Microsoft Entra admin center, go to Billing»Licenses and click on “Self-service sign up products”.
• Here, you can view all the self-service sign up products and select a subscription you want to delete.
• Then, click Delete at the top to delete the selected subscription.

This method allows you to delete a self-service subscription that has already been activated. However, to globally block users from signing up for such subscriptions, you need to configure global settings via PowerShell.

Globally block self-service sign-up subscriptions in M365 via PowerShell

To prevent users from signing up for new self-service subscriptions, you can block them globally using PowerShell. Unlike deletion, which removes existing subscriptions, blocking ensures that no new self-service access can be initiated without IT oversight.

Update-MgPolicyAuthorizationPolicy -AllowedToSignupEmailBasedSubscriptions $false

Self-service purchases in Microsoft 365 let individual users buy subscriptions for products like Power BI, Power Automate, and Project using their own payment methods bypassing IT involvement and the organization’s centralized billing system. These purchases are user-initiated, managed independently, and may lead to compliance, security, or billing issues if left uncontrolled.

How are self-service purchases different from self-service sign-up subscriptions?

Manage self-service purchase settings in Microsoft 365 admin center

You can control how users can access self-service trials and purchase options by configuring these settings in the admin center.

• Allow: Users are allowed to try or buy this product on their own.
• Allow trials only: Users are allowed to try the product for free, but they won’t be able to buy it themselves. When the trial ends, it won’t switch to a paid subscription, but users may still be able to request a paid license from an admin.
• Do not allow: It disables self-service purchases for the selected product. In some cases, users may still see a free trial option and might be able to request a paid license through an admin.

Manage self-service purchases using PowerShell

Managing self-service purchase settings through the Microsoft 365 admin center often requires navigating multiple tabs, which can be a time-consuming process. With PowerShell, admins can quickly configure these settings across multiple products using a single cmdlet.

Install-Module -Name MSCommerce -Scope CurrentUser
Import-Module -Name MSCommerce
Connect-MSCommerce

Get-MSCommerceProductPolicies -PolicyId AllowSelfServicePurchase

Update-MSCommerceProductPolicy -PolicyId AllowSelfServicePurchase -ProductId <Product_Id> -Enabled $True   

Disable self-service purchases in Microsoft 365 using PowerShell script

It's important to track which guest users in your Microsoft 365 environment have been assigned subscriptions, especially free licenses. While guest users generally don’t require paid licenses, some may be granted free or trial licenses to support specific collaboration needs. Identifying these users helps avoid unnecessary license consumption and ensures compliance with your organization’s licensing policies.

Find guest users free license details via Microsoft 365 admin center

• Sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center and navigate to the Users»Guest users.
• Click on Choose columns and select Licenses to add the license column to the guest users view.
• Click Save and you can view all licenses including the free subscriptions assigned for each guest user.

Get guest users free subscription details using PowerShell

$freeUsers = Get-MgUser -Filter "userType eq 'Guest'" -All | ForEach-Object {
    $licenses = Get-MgUserLicenseDetail -UserId $_.Id
    $matchedSkus = $licenses | Where-Object { $_.SkuPartNumber -match $freeSkuPatterns }

    if ($matchedSkus) {
        [PSCustomObject]@{
            DisplayName       = $_.DisplayName
            UserPrincipalName = $_.UserPrincipalName
            FreeLicenses      = ($matchedSkus.SkuPartNumber -join ", ")
        }
    }
}
$freeUsers | Format-Table

Native methods for tracking guest users’ license details often require manual checks and offer limited visibility. AdminDroid simplifies this by providing comprehensive reports that display license assigned details for both internal and external users with just a few clicks.

• This report provides clear insights into all guest users with assigned licenses in your organization. It also supports advanced column customization and sorting, which helps you access assigned free subscriptions alone.
• With this report, admins can identify unnecessary licenses assigned to external users to optimize costs and maintain better license governance.